September 22, 2008

Life with Lime and Salt, Part One

Now that it’s “winter,” as better referred to as the rainy season, each afternoon the sky turns black and warm water comes falling from the sky in seemingly endless torrential downpours. The tourist have mostly disappeared, too busy in their own countries catching up to life and returning to school. When the Gringos are sparse in Quepos, the Ticos participate in all kinds of patriotic activities, as if to confirming to themselves that they haven’t conformed too greatly, or rather over adapted and compromised to a booming tourist culture.

Waiting on the corner at the bus stop, I sit and look around. The town center and soccer field is bustling with team players in yellow and black shirts. They look like bumblebees swarming in flashes. The hot metal bleachers are totally stuffed with local Quepeños who are eating chicharon (fried pork rinds) with boiled yucca and shredded cabbage drenched in lemon, chili, and salt. Papas with fat bellies and baseball caps, balance small straddling children on their sides, fingers dripping with pig grease. Clusters of young pregnant girls stand around in short jean shorts with their hands on their hips, black hair sleeked back on their delicate skulls, large sun glasses perched on their noses and ornately painted toes spread wide in their flip flops, supporting two.

As the buses pull into the center station, a crack junkie with torn slacks, a toothless mouth, and one of those orange mesh vests that construction workers wear, gets up off his seat on the sidewalk. He blows one of the many whistles he has dangling around his dirt ringed neck and directs the buses in and out of their stopping stations, a flash of elbows and hands. He believes his job to be of utmost importance, he seems almost franticly happy with his committed work, waving his arms madly, blowing his whistles with full gusts of breath. Only thing is the bus drivers pay no attention to him, never acknowledging his effort to help out in society. This man is here everyday, all day, guiding buses that don’t need guiding, blowing his whistles and jangling a gigantic bundle of dirty keys he keeps on a piece of old rope tied to his pant loop. To what doors do all these keys go? I wonder as I watch him. Or are these just modern day swords, defense weapons against other junkies. How important he must feel! When he’s not directing traffic, I’ve seen him playing the preacher role as well. Pacing back and forth in front of the waiting crowds at the bus station, he passionately gestures and shouts about various topics such as the end of the world, communism, dictators, government corruption and social problems in Costa Rica.

The crack junkies in this town are special. Living in the old cemetery of Quepos, which is on a high hill just outside of town, they sleep under metal and cardboard roofs, or the sidewalk. Each time I return to this town, the same characters (I recognize about 5 by name now and another dozen by face) are still prowling the streets. The crack heads here seem shameless, somehow they mingle right in with society, and society seems to not be bothered by them. There’s some sort of accepted coexistence between the two. Generally in the little country that is Costa Rica, Quepos junkies are considered to be comparably the friendliest, and to me somehow they always seem at best to be somewhat happy and at least entertained by one other.
This morning’s crack head scene: A couple I don’t recognize are walking top speed and barefoot down the hot cement street, heels up, chests out, hair matted over the ears. They’ve got the typical look of having young bodies with old withered faces, and always, jutting stained teeth. The girl is sticking her middle and forefinger into a chip bag and feeding what she jerkily retrieves to her semi toothless friend. Her nails are caked with filth and now chip grease and crumbs. She licks them happily, jerking her head back laughing. The guy laughs with her. They’ve turned the corner, now they’re out of my sight. A flash of a day in the life of a Quepos junkie. Although in reality it is reasonably tragic, I actually get quite a kick out of the junkies’ quirks and daily exhibitions.

There is one particular woman who is hands downs my favorite character in Quepos, and maybe all of Costa Rica. This junkie is known as La Flaca, or La Flaquita- the Skinny Girl. When I first began living in Quepos, I was completely amused by this woman, and whenever I would arrive at the bus station from traveling, or being in another part of the country, within the first five minutes of my arrival, La Flaquita would somehow always be walking around close to me.

La Flaca is a junkie with style, an apparition, my own Mother Mary and patron saint of Quepos. It even became a joke with some of my friends, because somehow she always seemed to be within my vicinity whenever I arrived. And, like always, when I got off the bus with all of my bags for the millionth time, there she was, frantically rubbing down the windows of Gollo’s- the local electronics store. There she was, shameless in her tall stature, radiating confidence, almost proud to be a spectacle in the center of town in neon flip-flops and pink designer booty shorts. Her legs are long and stick thin, and looked froglike as she squatted up and down moving her long arm above her to wash the now shining windows. La Flaca surprisingly has quite a nice trim body, that of a runway model, and she walks as if she knows it. On the contrary, her face is almost shockingly crude, with giant horse-like teeth and badly cut wiry hair.

La Flaca reminds me of an old Costa Rican folk tale. The tale goes that in old times, when men used to ride horses down the roads at night, that a woman named La Segua would often be seen by the side of the road asking for a ride. She had a beautiful body but her face was always covered with a veil. The story then goes that that many men would pick her up on the road, intrigued by her beautiful body. But before too long, those who brought La Segua onto their horse for a lift, would discover that once she lifted her veil, she had a horrendously ugly face resembled a horse face and in some cases, skull. Many such men died of fright. Young men out late drinking are often warned not to pick up strange ladies on the streets for fear of La Segua.

What also makes La Flaca so interesting to me is that she is uncannily stylish, each day appearing in different and well though out outfits, flashy red velvet dresses or high heeled boots. It seems to me she takes great pride in her image because she is always quite clean, and consistently glamorous. My girlfriends here all know her personally, in fact they are the ones that are supporting her eclectic wardrobe, donating clothes every so often, claiming that she’s worth donating to because she doesn’t steal, never begs, and supports herself with odd jobs around town. La Flaca is also the boldest with her smoking habits. Often times I will be eating in a Soda (restaurant) in town, and there she will be, in some elaborate outfit and glittering eyelids, smoking her crack pipe right on the national bank’s steps.

Then there’s La Cagona- “The Pooper.” Not a crack junkie, rather a senile old lady who wears the same faded pale blue dress everyday, along with ruffled white socks pulled up above her wrinkly ankles. She aimlessly wanders the town’s streets, clutching a holey handkerchief she fingers obsessively all day, her clouded eyes looking for reasonable candidates to beg from. Initially I never understood why her name was La Cagona, until one day on my walk home from town, I saw her walking in front of me in the sidewalk, then she stopped, lifted her paper thin blue dress, pulled down white panties and began taking a poop right there on the sidewalk. One day I followed her to see where she would end up, and discovered that she lives on my street, in a fairly nice apartment. I saw her take a little silver key with no keychain out of her dress’s pocket, put it in the door with skill, and quickly slip inside. Now whenever I walk the streets of Quepos, I watch where I step.

Sitting on the bus, I observe a myriad of situations. The public bus, currently and historically, is an interesting space where nuances of discrimination, tradition, and classism leak out into common observation. A lot about a culture can be determined in a public bus by people’s conversations, seating choices, the comfort and discomfort of physical closeness, and then all that happens outside of the windows of the bus; what the passengers are observing.

I’m fishing through sand, old chocolate ice cream wrappers, and double A batteries for the heavy rounded 500 colones coin that I know is somewhere in the bottom of my limp purse. The bus breaches the corner and the folks I’m waiting with stand up off the curb, shuffle their feet, and begin to count change from their swim short pockets. Many of the people waiting with me are wearing their hotel work uniforms, accompanied by clean white socks and neatly combed and fragrant hair.

The bus comes to stop and, after I let a few people ahead of me, I hop up the three big steps inside. I recognize the bus driver; he is one of the three that rotates on this line. They call him “Mi Rey” – “my king.” He has a mullet of black corkscrew curls and always has his hospital green collared shirt unbuttoned three buttons down, exposing curly chest hair. He has the body type of big round stomach and little chicken legs. Quite charming, I think. He takes my change with skill, and drops it into a pile of similar coins, then he scoops up my change and mumbles “gracias.”

Mi Rey is my favorite bus driver because his so to speak change drawer, which rests on top of the gear shifter to his right, is made out of what looks like the foam of an old sofa cushion with carefully carved out two-inch sections for the different coins. Across the side of this old piece of dirty golden foam it says “Mi Rey” in highly stylized dark blue marker that has bled in all directions into the porous foam. Sometimes when I sit on Mi Rey’s bus, and we’re careening around steep corners and he’s turning the massive shining steering wheel with all his might, I imagine him with a big golden crown on top of his curly head, and jeweled and ringed fingers that would make fancy clinking noises when he accepted coins from passengers.

As I enter the bus I instantly feel self-conscious. I become conscious that I am a white woman, and that most everyone else on the bus isn’t. I feel everyone’s eyes on me as I walk down the aisle to an empty seat I see near the back of the bus, I feel my blood rush up from my feet and pound in my ears and throat. Now that I’m on my seat I feel safe, thank God that the bus isn’t too full, then I would have to remain standing and everyone would be staring at my bare legs.

When the very touristy season- Jan-June-, takes over Quepos, the public bus ride is very different experience than today. I observe other foreigners, mostly North Americans, getting on the bus. I watch them like a hawk, judging my own kind, finding fault in everything they do. Usually they do not seem as self conscious as I feel. They fumble for the correct fare to give to the bus driver, making a long tail of people wait behind them, then, in English, they ask if they can pay in dollars, then once on the bus they talk loudly, they look gawky and pasty, and if standing, they stumble with every curve the bus takes, obviously unfamiliar with the route. Their English words pierce the air like a thorn in my side.

It’s strange how humiliated I feel in such situations, when I’m merely sitting in my own seat quietly waiting to arrive at the beach. I suppose this all revolves around my fear of being stereotyped, of being lumped into categories with people I do not relate to. I don’t want to be seen as the “easy Gringa” on vacation. I don’t want to give off the impression that I am that U.S. spring-breaking college girl, who has heading south to let loose in sun, beach, and party atmosphere. I have myself seen such spring breakers who, for good reason, have the reputation they do. The occasional times I will go out to a bar, there they are, dancing like wild animals of the night in dark eye makeup and short skirts, cigarette and vodka breath, burned bellies sticky from doing liquor shots, and then going home with any cute Tico that happens to be salivating for sex. But, what would this town be without them?

The bus bumps along the road, lurching, stopping, people getting on and off, and I’m beginning to feel quite lost, annoyed and angry thinking about these gringos. My people, who by their likeness in appearance to me automatically make it very difficult for me to be seen as different from them, as an individual. I feel angry that I am instantly an object of sex just because I am a woman, but even more so because I am an American woman. This makes Latino men believe they have the right tell me I have a nice ass right on the street, or throw ever cruder comments my direction as I pass through the streets.

This constant buttering up of my appearance and obvious opinion of what I am in the Latino society, instantly throws me into a state of frustration and conflict. Here I am, getting caught between feeling that I need to accept these catcalls more as a cultural difference than an insult or standing up for my self-respect as a woman. What do I do? The last time a man on a lonely street commented on my body as I happily biked by, made me so flustered that in a loss of the right words to use I simply stuck my tongue out at him, making an ugly face like a bratty little girl. “Ah si Mami, how delicious!” he replied. I felt defeated and peddled hard, angry with myself that I couldn’t come up with something more effective in the moment.

I recall a few years ago when I asked the few Latina girlfriends I had in Costa Rica about how they dealt with constant cat calls, they seemed very unconcerned and said that they just ignored it, or even sometimes that they took it as a compliment. While reading up on this very subject sometime last year due to my frustration with the issue, I found personal accounts that stated that some Latina women who came to visit the U.S or even North American women upon returning from an extended visit in Latin America, felt their self esteem had been lowered due to the absence of men’s “approval” on the streets. I remember being baffled by this, as my personal experience is usually one of feeling instantly degraded, stereotyped and therefore very disempowered.

Occasionally I feel this even as I sit on the bus while nobody is saying anything to me; disempowered because of my nationality and gender. It is the ghost of imperialism at my sides, it is all the politics and cultural differences that simply come along with my skin color and my nationality, it is the hyper responsibility I feel I carry as an American, as a privileged human being.
I daily struggle with this, being foreign, feeling degraded, being female. Even the walk from my apartment into the town center is one where I either have to pass a car garage where greasy armed men insistently harass me each time I walk by, or am intersection where all the town’s junkies sit together and tweak, asking passersby for “just one coin.” Since the incident with me sticking out my tongue, I’ve preferred passing the junkies over the car garage.

“So what is it you’re actually doing here in Quepos?” asks an acquaintance of mine who has taken a seat next to me on the bus. Good question, I think to myself. What am I doing here? Really. I don’t do much. I read, cook, buy food to cook, read, write, sit on the bus, hang out with my boyfriend, watch movies, go to the internet café, and home again. I sit on my balcony and watch the downpours of rain each afternoon. Then I read some more. I did buy a jigsaw puzzle and some yarn to knit a scarf out of, but what am I really doing here?

I tell myself I am lucky, and that this isn’t exactly boredom, its just a simple life, the Pura Vida as everyone says here- the pure life, which to me translates as a life composed of a long line of highly non eventful days that pass slow and smooth like honey. The beach, the town center, riding the public bus, dancing Salsa and Merengue, Imperial beer, coffee with bread and sour cream in the afternoons on someone’s shaded porch, hanging laundry in the sun, tropical music, rice and beans, cleaning the floor, brushing teeth. The Pura Vida. And its true, my days flow by easily, fluidly, without many bumps in the road, I’ve just hung my clothes up to dry, had coffee, and now I’m on the stuffy public bus. But how can I get away from this feeling of incessant boredom?

Slowly, I observe the tourists come and go, I see them as thrilled to be on vacation, they’ve got a whole itinerary, they’ve been planning it for months, they’ve got brand new New Balances, bikinis and binoculars. Ah… now they can relax. But me, somehow, I’m on permanent vacation, and its getting old. It’s the feeling of not being productive, as if my life in “the real world” is on pause as soon as I get off the airplane, feet on Tico soil.

Then there’s the beach. I adore the beach, and how it is always there for me to relax on, to bake on, stretch on, eat empanadas on, read on, talk on, kiss on. Look at, look at the people passing by, lovers strolling, joggers jogging. Time passes and melts away, and all that is familiar is the oppressive heat, or the oppressive rain.

The material objects I own become my only companions, my clothes, shoes, each with a seemingly distinct character like a specific friends in my life. When I come home from the beach, my fan is whirring its head back and forth in my bedroom, making the clothes dance on their plastic neon hangers, as if they’re waving to me and excited I’ve come home. (Did I just write home?) They’re joyous welcome always brings a smile to my mouth and I’ve made a point to always leave the fan on when I leave for this very reason. The small pleasures in life that make big differences. Just like the little decisions in life that have irreversible outcomes. That’s why I’m here.

The bus is nearing the beach stop. The vegetation is thicker as we dip down towards the big blue sea, shading out the almost equatorial blazing mid day sun. The air is instantly damper, moist with forest rain from the thriving national park. Wet, hot and earthy, this is the smell of the Costa Rica I love. A refreshing breeze finally relieves the passengers of stifling heat. Hair stuck to sweaty foreheads is now lifted in the air that’s whooshing through the bus.

I get off the bus and step down the beach, flip-flops in my hand, sunglasses on my lathered nose. I look around me as my thighs scorch in the noon sun. Greased up Ticas lie side by side to my right. They have so much coconut oil on their tanned skin that they look like plastic human sized dolls, melting away in the sun, stuck in a meticulous position so as to receive the most efficient and even melting possible. (Coconut oil= universal beach smell.) Teenage boys walk in packs down the sandy shore, gold crosses thumping up and down on over their hearts to the rhythm of a confident gait, shoulders first. Surfers stroll towards the noisy water, surfboards under their strong arms like shields for the battle they are about to engage in.

Little girls with curly pigtails and floral bikinis lie on their bellies at the edge of the waves, screeching with joy each time a wavelet crashed onto their tiny bodies. The snow cone man is getting lots of business today. He leans proudly with his hand on his hip against the hand made cart. Plastic bottles in a neat row are filled with artificial electric colored syrup, while the ice, in a dark compartment below waits to be dressed in the magnificent neon liquid.

Then, just as I’m feeling the loneliest I have felt all day, in the distance I hear the perfect and familiar rhythm of cowbell and salsa music fills my ears. Suddenly it all snaps into place for me, and I understand why I am here. I feel happy to be in Costa Rica, I feel happy when I hear salsa music. Even though the lyrics of salsa music are terribly sad, it makes my heart fly and beat faster, not to mention that I instantly begin to grin uncontrollably. I imagine myself spinning around dancing with the Tico I love, my feet stepping to the infectious rhythm. Somehow, I relate so fully to this music, also to the lyrics. It is heartbreaking and extraordinarily happy music all at the same time. It gives me a reason to be happy when I’m sad. Lyrics of desperately missing someone, or begging forgiveness, or not being able to have the one he wants, brings me close to tears imagining myself suffering the same way, sitting on a couch with a bottle of wine. Salsa music completely romanticizes heartbreak. Salsa music, somehow also is the final found puzzle piece for me, it reminds me of why I am here.

As a result I’ve plopped myself down on the tawny burning sand as close as I can get to parked jeep with its trunk open, blasting salsa classics. In front of the jeep, sitting in the roots of a giant almond tree, a young mother and father are cutting up a juicy pineapple and handing the round slices to their two rosy-cheeked children. The children nibble proficiently around the heart, their fingers dripping with juice, their pigtails dripping with salty ocean water. Pineapple family and salsa music on a sunny Sunday on the beach; isn’t that all anybody wants anyways?